Category Archives: reviews

Lacey Longs for Freedom: The Dawn Witch’s Low-Key Life after Defeating the Demon King, Vol. 3

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By Hyogo Amagasa and Kyouichi. Released in Japan as “Akatsuki no Majo Lacey wa Jiyū ni Ikitai” by Overlap Novels f. Released in North America by J-Novel Heart. Translated by Amanogawa Tenri.

This one snuck up on me. I was sort of gently mocking the book as I went through the first half, which is very much on the “low-key life” part of the title. Lacey invents oven mitts. Lacey invents a camera. But then it turns out that all of this, as well as the previous two books, are important as Lacey is asked to come back to the capital. And, while there’s a lot of backsliding and introverted panicking, the difference between the Lacey of the start of the first book and the one we see in this volume is night and day. She’s an incredibly powerful witch, and everyone and their brother want to use her. But while she does want to bring the kingdom happiness, she also wants the privilege of choosing how she is used. And people are taking notice. Best of all, Lacey finally cottons on to what her feelings for Wayne actually are. She’s not quite ready to do anything yet, but the feelings are recognized.

Wayne shows up at the village again, and this time he’s here for a full month, though he doesn’t say why. We see Lacey helping Cedric, who turns out to have a daughter who is getting married, and he wants to bake something special for the wedding but can’t figure out what. After the wedding, discussion of how the kids are having trouble remembering what the dress looked like makes Lacey want to create photography, which she does through a wonderful series of trial and error and the help of her phoenix. Finally, though, Wayne reveals why he’s there. The princess (you know, the one who cheated with Lacey’s fiancee in Book 1) is getting married, but has locked herself in her room right before the wedding. The king is asking Lacey to help do something about that. But why is the princess there in the first place?

After getting a fairly typical “evil noble” in the last book, the most refreshing part of this one is seeing how it handles the prior antagonists. The King is mindboggled by how much Lacey has changed from just a year away from saving the world and being the Dawn Witch. Alicia, the princess, already fully regrets her philandering, but being married off to a foreign prince (who’s fine, at least) has her lonely and homesick before she even leaves. Heck, we even get a side story showing that Raymond, whose fault all of this really is, has gotten used to life on the farm where he’s been exiled too, and is even coming through with delicious vegetables. If there’s a weak spot in the series, it continues to be Wayne, who I sort of but not really wish would be found to have a dark side, or a secret he hasn’t revealed. He’s just this bland guy.

But we’re not here for him, we’re here for Lacey, and she’s fun. She also reminds me of Monica, so Silent Witch fans should also get this. The next volume, which should wrap the series up, is not out in Japan yet.

Reincarnated As a Sword, Vol. 1

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By Yuu Tanaka and Llo. Released in Japan as “Tensei Shitara Ken deshita” by GC Novels. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Mike Rachmat. Adapted by Jaymee Goh.

When this book first came out in 2019, I read about 25 pages of it and stopped, abandoning the book as I really didn’t like it. I mentioned this recently to some other folks, whose reaction was mostly “wait, you didn’t even get to the catgirl?”Sure enough, I guess there is a catgirl on the cover. And as I deal with a slow August, I thought that maybe I had just been in a bad mood that day, and I started the book again, determined to finish it. Well, I did finish it. And it definitely does improve when Fran shows up. But I also was not wrong back in 2019. This might be the worst start to a popular light novel series I have ever read. Our hero is annoying, he’s overly chuuni, he kills a lot of monsters without remorse (oddly, he gets the remorse later, after meeting Fran), and there’s also a ton of stat counting. And, of course, “Oh, I guess this world has slavery.” Said like you’re going to the deli.

Our sword protagonist, who doesn’t even remember his old name, is hit by… a sports car (not a truck!) and wakes up in a fantasy world as a magic sword. He spends the first eighty pages or so of this book trying out cool powers, defeating increasingly dangerous monsters, being being incredibly smug and annoying. Unfortunately, he then ends up stuck in a land that saps mana, and can no longer move around. Cue Fran, a catgirl who’s part of a group of slaves who ran into monsters. After taking care of the monsters, and the slave owner, Fran and the sword (who she names “Teacher”) team up, and head to the nearest large city. From this point the book gets far more generic and predictable, which is actually a point in its favor. The writer stops trying to make the sword entertaining and focuses instead on the sword trying to teach Fran how to get strong and also possibly not become a sociopath.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t I a huge fan of A Late-Start Tamer’s Laid-Back Life, by the same author? I am indeed. Oddly, the books seemingly start off very similar, with our main character going around, experimenting, and looking at their stats go up when they do things. The Tamer book, though, is actually a GAME, not reality, so I don’t need to apply the same morality to it. Yuta’s experimentation, due to his class, avoids fighting for the most part, while the sword’s revels in it. Yuta is generally nice to everyone and gives away things without realizing their value. The sword eventually starts to realize that killing goblins while literally imitating Stormbringer is perhaps a bit too evil, but since this is a world where all monsters are default evil, he doesn’t dwell on this too much. At least he doesn’t lech on Fran, who is only twelve years old. Her stoicness, while clearly the result of trauma, also makes her more interesting in contrast to her partner.

So yes, this gets better. I’m sure later volumes are interesting. But I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than read the start of this book again. Moving on.

Too Many Losing Heroines!, Vol. 5

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By Takibi Amamori and Imigimuru. Released in Japan as “Make Heroine ga Ōsugiru!” by Gagaga Bunko. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Matthew Jackson. Adapted by Hayame.

Given that this is a series that, about half the time, frames itself as a parody of the standard light novel high school harem genre, I should not have been surprised with the outcome of this volume. And yet. I was surprised. I had certainly seen the previous four volumes, showing Nukumizu’s sister Kaju as, shall we say, dangerously obsessed with her brother, but other series have also done that (looking at you, Goodbye Overtime), and have known that it’s OK to show them as being far too close for a brother and a sister without saying straight out “there is sexual desire here, this is meant to be incestuous for real”. Losing Heroines goes there, and so this comes as a content warning for those who might be put off. That said, I think most who would be put off wouldn’t have gotten this far into the series anyway, and it’s not as if Nukumizu has the ability to understand anyone’s attraction to him, much less his sister.

It’s time for the middle school students to visit prospective high schools, and that means our protagonists have to show off what makes their school great. For some this is easy due to talent (Lemon, who may be held back a grade but boy can she run). For some it’s easy due to personality (Anna, despite her foibles, can be outgoing and personable). The literature club is in trouble, though, with its two introverts who hate dealing with others. Nukumizu, however, has other problems. It’s Valentine’s Day soon. He heard his sister recently on the phone talking about… a guy! And she’s got plans in the calendar the siblings share that imply dates! She’s 14, that’s far too young to date, surely! Everyone else tells him he’s overthinking this, but they’re not getting through to him, as he’s in full big-brother mode. Hijincks, of course, ensue.

As always this is a well-written book, with a lot of laugh out loud gags. Anna is funny whenever she opens her mouth, and her chocolate cannonball was deserving of the interstitial art it got. Nukumizu, as always, is so good at reading the hidden subtext of most of the relationships of others around him that he fails to see the actual TEXT of girls throwing themselves at him. He is told by his friend Ayano that he needs to realize how he looks to everyone around him who doesn’t have the full story, and Nukumizu… brushes him off. And let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Not only does Kaju provide a story for the literature club about a brother who has knocked up his little sister, but she’s also really desperate to help her friend Gondou with her own doomed relationship, despite the fact that Gondou knows that Kaju is really thinking about herself. She knows she can’t have sex with her brother. She knows he just sees her as family. And, as this volume makes explicit, she HATES that.

Now that we’ve unlocked the barn door and let the horses out, I assume that she’s going to get more blatant in future volumes, which does not thrill me. But she also won’t be the focus, so I’ll bear with it for now. For romcom diehards and people who don’t understand why I don’t like that sweet, sweet incest.